How Close are we to Elections and who will Win? The Weekly Update

A new poll has the Likud winning the next election with 26 seats followed by Yesh Atid at 21. Labor loses 11 seats, dropping to 13. Speaking of the uninspiring nature of the opposition, 30 of their members accidentally voted in favor of the first reading of the government’s budget bill.

At an opposition rally in memory of former Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, opposition leaders claimed that Bibi had declared war on democracy accusing the right wing government of harassment and incitement. Earlier in the week, Herzog opened the winter session by claiming that the “principles and goals [of the Netanyahu Government] are that of a military coup”. Not sure the pot wins back the kettle’s voters with those lines.

In Bibi’s opening winter session speech, he insisted that he wanted to see Israeli-Arabs integrated and successful within Israeli society. As long as they don’t vote too much.

Hero of the week Ksenia Svetlova (pictured above) of the Zionist Union donned a bride’s veil while arguing for her bill to allow Israelis who get married abroad to receive compensation from the state. The rejected bill was ridiculous, but at Kalpi we respect all political pageantry.

Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked published a list of 28 candidates for four Supreme Court seats. Last week she got into a fight with President of the Supreme Court, Miriam Naor, over Shaked’s supposed support of a law that would allow for the appointment of new Supreme Court judges without the current judges’ support. I don’t have a joke, so the Jpost comments section under the link will have to suffice. For those who don’t want to follow the link, the leftist traitor judge is the root of Israel’s problems.

The issue of the “Taagid” was pushed off for 3 weeks for more consultations. To explain, beginning in 2000, multiple committees concluded that the Israeli Broadcast Authority (hereon: Reshut) employed too many people and paid them too much. In 2003, Finance Minister Bibi began pushing for the closure of the Reshut. In 2013, then Minister of Communications Gilad Erdan hired consultants to look closer at the Reshut (Getting boring yet? Cus there’s more). In 2014, some changes were made to the Reshut and it was announced that in 2015 it would be closed. The bill was sponsored by Erdan and tanning bed come to life Yair Lapid and also founded the Israeli Broadcast Corporation (hereon: Taagid) to replace the Reshut on March 31, 2016. The Taagid would provide the same public news source at a more efficient cost and was supposed to be unbiased (something that actually created controversy). However, in the meantime, Bibi decided that he’s not so keen on the Taagid, which is now supposed to start broadcasting in January 2017. The left thinks that Bibi is trying to shut down free media (“The media is the new Arabs” opined one journalist second class citizen) and the right thinks that the media is biased and that it’s a waste of taxpayer money to support the Taagid. The Finance Ministry has come out strong against the closure and has estimated that it will cost 370 million Shekels to close it…..So I’m sure this will be finished in three weeks. In related news, raise your hand if you feel a desperate connection to the Reshut which includes Channels 1 and 33 on TV and Reshets A-E on the radio. I would be surprised if this leads to a coalition crisis.

Until Labor forms a plan to attract voters outside of Tel Aviv, the next election will remain Bibi’s with Yesh Atid solidly in the number 2 position. February 8, 2018 remains the predicted date.